Imagine yourself sitting by a window, looking out at a garden on a lovely spring day. You see birds and bees and butterflies merrily flitting about, when all of a sudden, the most beautiful butterfly in the world catches your eye. Its stunning turquoise wings make your heart explode, its joyful flight makes your soul sing, its metamorphosis from wet wormy thing to creature of soaring beauty fills you with inspiration. Suddenly you leap up, overcome and crazed with a fierce desire; it must be mine mine mine! You sprint to the closet, grab your net, sneak outside and tiptoe through the tulips, stalking your beloved prey, all senses alert, focused, determined, tenacious, swinging your net over your head as you chase your butterfly around the garden. You chase it for hours and hours, but all you seem to be able to do is scare it off, rather than catch it. It's only when you stop trying so desperately, relax, breathe, and surrender your desire to The Universe that the butterfly of your dreams calmly comes and lands on your nose. - Jin Sincero
You are a Badass, chapter 25
Comments
Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don't wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it's at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.
- Earl Nightingale Aside from making meditations, my main creative passion is screenwriting. I am not a filmmaker, but I do love all things about film, and so I recently joined a team of people who set out to make a 5 minute movie in a 48 hour period.
It was all part of a "film race" that began last weekend. On the day the film race started, we were given a genre, a prop to include, and a line of dialogue to incorporate. Without knowing our genre, nothing could be written until the start of the race. It was very exciting! We received the genre of mystery. All teams also received the same prop - a lighter - and the line "Nothing a little elbow grease can't fix." Thanks to the incredible kindness and generosity of a local family, we were able to film at a real Victorian mansion. Known as the "Crow Mansion," it had the perfect setting for our mysterious thriller. We spent over 12 hours filming on Saturday, and I learned so much about what it takes to make a movie. We finished up our shots on Sunday, and the directors went home to continue working on editing. I volunteered to make the movie poster because I love creating graphics. I only had a few hours, and I was a little nervous I wouldn't do the team justice. But with a shot our director took of the house, I had a solid starting point. I edited the photo in Photoshop, added some text, and sent it off. Last night, the top 16 films were shown, and ours was one of them. It was so fun and amazing to see our film on the big screen! It was also incredible to see so much ingenuity and passion from the other filmmakers. I'm so unbelievably grateful to have been a part of this. The other films were so good I had zero expectations of winning anything. And then to my surprise, we won top student film! The poster I made flashed up on the screen and my jaw dropped. I have to say, it looked really cool towering over us. The directors were given a copy of the poster, which is a great memento from an amazing weekend. A big thank you to everyone that was part of the 48 hour film race! I can't wait to do it all again next year. Human beings are artists. Before the age of mass media, by which you can passively sit and be entertained, the only way to get through the dark, hard times was to make stuff. And everyone did. My grandparents were dairy farmers who lived in the depression. They were literally almost losing the farm every single month, and they had to deal with sickness and poverty and way too many kids. And they were Swedish Lutherans who lived in Nothern Minnesota. You can't get a more grim life than that. At the same time, they were artists, and they made things. My grandfather made beautiful silver jewelry. My grandmother made everything, and everything she made was beautiful. They helped to provide me with what I think the definition of art is, which is anything that you make that is more beautiful than it needs to be. My grandmother made quilts because it was cold, and they couldn't afford to buy them, and it was also a really good use of rags. All of those things are very pragmatic. There's no reason those quilts needed to be as beautiful as they were. She could've just slapped some rags together and thrown 'em on top of her kids and been like, "Goodnight!" But instead, she spent months on it because it pleased her. It was necessary to her happiness because it's what we are. I feel like the entire Universe is a big creative project that's on going. There's this static state version of the Universe, which is the sort of Biblical idea of it, which says, "The Universe was created and then it stopped. And we're just rattling around inside of it." And then there's the actual truth about the Universe, which is that it's being created. It's creating itself and it wants to be more complex, more beautiful, bigger, bolder, stranger, and so it's constantly working with new form. So literally every single piece of energy in the Universe is going in the direction of expansion, invention, creativity, the new, strange combinations that make no sense - this is what's happening in real time. That's what the river and the current of energy of the Universe are. Whenever we step into that and make stuff and participate in that we are healthy because we're being backed up by literally all the energy of the Universe. And whenever we step out of that, and stop being creative, and become passive, the reason we get sick is because we're going against the entire grain of the Universe. It's unnatural not to make art. It's no wonder you feel heavy and depressed and lethargic when you stop your creative flow. It's because you're in the wrong direction. There's a field that's going this way, and you're going the wrong way or no way at all. And so when you enter into that stream, you're healed. You're healed by everything else that is also going in that direction. When you do not know what else to do, relax and tell yourself that other portions of yourself do know what do do, and they will take over.
Give yourself some rest and remind yourself that in many ways you are a very successful person as you are. Now success does not necessarily involve great intellect or great position or great wealth. It has to do with inner integrity. Remember that. - Seth via Jane Roberts The Early Class Sessions, Book 3 |